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Kurt Vonnegut
Assesses the nature of Vonnegut's popularity, the quality of his humor, the ornaments of his style, and the importance of his concerns and techniques
124 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 13, 2022
Made some points. Only some.
May 14, 2013
I think this little work is required reading for anyone who seeks to understand Vonnegut's worldview as well as his literary influences and technical approach. Concise, insightful and well written.
This short book provides some interesting insights into Vonnegut's influences and worldview and argues convincingly that behind the veneer of cartoonish and flat simplicity lies a deep and well thought out artistic vision of one of America's best 20th century writers. A must read for anyone seeking to better understand and appreciate Vonnegut, including students and professors of literature who are often so quick to dismiss him as a hack or just a writer of science fiction.
This short book provides some interesting insights into Vonnegut's influences and worldview and argues convincingly that behind the veneer of cartoonish and flat simplicity lies a deep and well thought out artistic vision of one of America's best 20th century writers. A must read for anyone seeking to better understand and appreciate Vonnegut, including students and professors of literature who are often so quick to dismiss him as a hack or just a writer of science fiction.
July 27, 2019
I’ve note read anything by Kurt yet but what an interesting character. Kurt was stuck in an underground slaughterhouse when the evil bombing for Dresden was taking place in the second world war in Germany. This experience led him to write his iconic book “ the Slaughterhouse 5” – what a stunning story that must have been . This book is more of a double click into his books and I found his writing style really interesting. Here are the best bits:
• One reason he sees for the unhappiness is that Americans suffer from living without a culture. American society is a lonesome one. He senses a longing for community, a longing that is frustrated from a shifting from house to house and from town to town that the economic system requires of so many Americans. Vonnegut not only believes that people should live their lives in one place, he would restore the old emphasis on family relationships by having the government create an artificial extended family.
• Vonnegut is sceptical about the sufficiency of systems.
• The sirens of titan is narrated by a persona who is looking backward from the distant future when men have finally realised that human exploration should be directed in wards, that the human soul not outer space, is the true terra incognita.
• It was going to show how a pair of lovers in a world gone mad could survive by being loyal only to a nation composed of themselves – a nation of two. Or as I would call it a culture or 2.
• To hell with delicate sparrowfarts who write delicately of one small pieces of some small lifetime, when the issues are galaxies, eons and the trillions of souls yet to be born.
• He lived through the surprise raid on what was supposed to be a safe city. Since it contained few targets of military importance. It was assumed that Dresden would not be massively bombed. As a consequence, its population had been doubled by prisoners of war and by refugees from the eastern front. But on the night of February 13th 1944, EIGHT HUNDRED ROAY AIR FORCE LANCASTAR BOMBERS, striking in waves dropped high explosive bombs followed by over 650,000 INCENDIARIES causing a firestorm that could be seen more than 200 miles away. On February 14th, the next day, American B17 fortresses CARRIED OUT A SECOND RAID, followed by P51 Mustang fighters, which completed the destruction of the city with strafing missions. The official death count is the figure 135,000 listed by Dresden police but some estimates indicate that over 200,000 people were killed.
• The children’s crusade after the infamous idea concocted in 1213 by 2 monks to raise armies of children in France and Germany, march them to North Africa and sell them as slaves (30,000 children were actually recruited)
• Human beings could be felled as easily by a single idea as by cholera or the bubonic plague.
• What does Vonnegut do? He comes up with a structure that includes both the yon yonson story and the wallpaper outline. It is as if he rolls the wallpaper into a tube so that all the characters and the incidents are closely layered so they are in effect one unit, and the reader must look at them from the side. The rube then becomes a telescope through which the reader looks into a 4th dimension.
• One reason he sees for the unhappiness is that Americans suffer from living without a culture. American society is a lonesome one. He senses a longing for community, a longing that is frustrated from a shifting from house to house and from town to town that the economic system requires of so many Americans. Vonnegut not only believes that people should live their lives in one place, he would restore the old emphasis on family relationships by having the government create an artificial extended family.
• Vonnegut is sceptical about the sufficiency of systems.
• The sirens of titan is narrated by a persona who is looking backward from the distant future when men have finally realised that human exploration should be directed in wards, that the human soul not outer space, is the true terra incognita.
• It was going to show how a pair of lovers in a world gone mad could survive by being loyal only to a nation composed of themselves – a nation of two. Or as I would call it a culture or 2.
• To hell with delicate sparrowfarts who write delicately of one small pieces of some small lifetime, when the issues are galaxies, eons and the trillions of souls yet to be born.
• He lived through the surprise raid on what was supposed to be a safe city. Since it contained few targets of military importance. It was assumed that Dresden would not be massively bombed. As a consequence, its population had been doubled by prisoners of war and by refugees from the eastern front. But on the night of February 13th 1944, EIGHT HUNDRED ROAY AIR FORCE LANCASTAR BOMBERS, striking in waves dropped high explosive bombs followed by over 650,000 INCENDIARIES causing a firestorm that could be seen more than 200 miles away. On February 14th, the next day, American B17 fortresses CARRIED OUT A SECOND RAID, followed by P51 Mustang fighters, which completed the destruction of the city with strafing missions. The official death count is the figure 135,000 listed by Dresden police but some estimates indicate that over 200,000 people were killed.
• The children’s crusade after the infamous idea concocted in 1213 by 2 monks to raise armies of children in France and Germany, march them to North Africa and sell them as slaves (30,000 children were actually recruited)
• Human beings could be felled as easily by a single idea as by cholera or the bubonic plague.
• What does Vonnegut do? He comes up with a structure that includes both the yon yonson story and the wallpaper outline. It is as if he rolls the wallpaper into a tube so that all the characters and the incidents are closely layered so they are in effect one unit, and the reader must look at them from the side. The rube then becomes a telescope through which the reader looks into a 4th dimension.
March 28, 2010
Offered some interesting insights regarding some of Vonnegut's novels.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews